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in the same direction, but branching off in many different 
directions. The integrations both in vegetable and in animal 
life are, indeed, by no means so definite as those of the 
chemical elements and combinations which seem positively to 
contradict the idea of continuity in Nature itself. Yet that 
there is not in organic matter a continuous series of inter- 
mediate existences connecting the species and genera and 
higher divisions one with another, and that wide lacunce often 
are found, are facts which cannot be questioned, however they 
may be explained. 
12. In the contemporaneous order of Nature, animate and 
inanimate, viewed as a whole, the harmony of the several parts 
and the adaptation of one to another, have been often noticed 
as evidences of design ; in other words, as proofs of the unity 
and order of Nature having its basis in one Supernatural and 
Infinite Eeason. As it would be absurd to attribute this 
harmony and adaptation to chance, the only kind of explana- 
tion that can be given of it by those who deny the necessity 
for a supernatural foundation for the order of Nature, is that 
one part of Nature has the power of adapting its forms and 
existences to the conditions of the other. This, of course, still 
leaves the question untouched, whence this strange power of 
self-adaptation is derived, for science and self- causation in 
Nature are contradictory. To this question I must again refer 
under the head of the consecutive order of the universe. But 
this theory of self-adaptation, at all events, can only be true 
within certain limits, and does not touch the general argument 
from the harmony of the inorganic world with the vegetable, 
the animal, and the human existences ; and of all these one with 
the other. For example, to all living existences, — at least, so far 
as we know anything of them, and to reason from ignorance 
instead of knowledge is not Science, — it is essential, first, that 
there should exist in the universe certain chemical elements, 
and these in particular combinations ; secondly, that the 
temperature should be confined within certain definite limits. 
“ Habit/' to use the words of Professor Huxley, “ may modify 
subsidiary, but cannot affect fundamental, conditions." And 
what cause in Nature itself can Science assign, or imagine with 
any probability, either for the necessary existence of these 
particular elements in the universe, or for the extremes of 
temperature, in any part of the universe, being confined within 
the limits which make life a possibility ? In this earth, though 
the average temperature were to continue exactly the same, 
yet, if the maximum and minimum temperatures were altered, 
the whole world would be a desert. 
13. Before proceeding to examine the question of the con- 
